Best opposition we've faced

Can’t argue with the Liverpool comments, but surely the 86/87 Arsenal side are worth an honorary mention given they were the nucleus of the side that won the league in 89. I look back at that lineup and there were some awesome players that day.

Chelsea Wed

I can remember reading The Shoot magazine  and it said estimated  20000 Grimsby fans in the eighties went to Anfield. I went on the Football special From Town station.

Quoted from sydney

Chelsea Wed

Not their bitter rivals Chelsea Utd?

Quoted from woodi147

I can remember reading The Shoot magazine  and it said estimated  20000 Grimsby fans in the eighties went to Anfield. I went on the Football special From Town station.

I also went on that "Football Special".

When we got back into Cleethorpes, because the train was so long we had to walk through a few carriages to get to the platform and more than one of them had had a window smashed coming out of Liverpool, luckily not ours.

I think people are being fairly quick to dismiss the two Liverpool teams we faced in 97 and 2001.

The 97 team finished third, had 6 England internationals and a World Cup winner in the 11. Midfield including Ince, Redknapp and  McManamam. Michael Owen was the most exciting youngster in the world, Chelsea had some fabulous youngsters on show but it’s still unlikely they’ll be as good as him.

Quoted from NorthseaMariner

I’m sure 15000 was quoted at the time.

We were one of the first coaches there, and they only had two turnstiles open at the Anfield Road end. I was talking to one of the police there and advised him there were huge numbers coming, but he said they'd been told about  two to three thousand only. There were approximately 20,000 there that day, you can check this by looking at the attendances Liverpool had at home that season. They surpassed 50,000 on only four occasions, versus Everton, Leeds, Man Utd and Spurs. Ours was their fifth highest attendance of the season. They played Bury, in what was basically a fairly local derby in the next round and there were 33,000 there. Assuming Bury took 5,000 it still leaves the Liverpool fans only attendance at about 28,000, and using that as the base of the game vs Grimsby you can see where the 20,000 plus fans figure comes from.

We were sat in the Kemlyn Road stand, which had a large Town contingent in it, and there were a good number of Town fans in the Kop who'd been directed there by the police. Of all the mind numbingly stupid decisions re police and football, that's got to be up there with the very worst. Some Town fans had knives pulled on them, and all the Town fans were evacuated at half time. Didn't end there though, the journey back to the coaches was pretty horrendous as they were all parked around Stanley Park and there were Evertonians involved as well looking to pick off folk as we'd beaten them in the League Cup that season. Got to love those scousers with their wonderful sense of humour, eh?

Agree with Jock above but later after standing on the pavement with a mad copper on motorbike zooming up and down yelling keep on the path which was impossible because of the vast numbers of our fans.

I took my life in my hands and wandered up the road and found 2 more turnstiles opened but they did not tell anybody so I wandered back side stepping the mad cop on his bike and told my wife and friends ,

We got through the turnstile leaving thousands still waiting to get through the first 2 turnstiles.

Maybe they did not want to get run over by that crazy cop.

Quoted from grimsby pete

We played West Ham  in the league cup 1965 and they had Hurst. Peters, Moore in their side,

We managed a 2-2 draw losing the replay 1-0.

Yes,  and I seem to remember we gave a debut to a 17 year
old wing-half that night on a rain-soaked Blundell Park.

Angus Davidson had a great match

Liverpool in 1980 were a great team on there way to another title, Everton were a great team on there way to 2 titles and many finals & cups. But the current Chelsea side are just a youngish squad being rebuilt, remember they had changed all 11 players from Sundays game against Liverpool.
Also this Grimsby team is in its very early days no where near as good as the 1980 or 1984 teams which were just about the best since the old First division days.
So I don't think last week stands for much, just look at the amount of team changes going on these days at Chelsea and Town as everywhere else.